Historical Definition of Romantic Love

Historical Definition of Romantic Love
From Wikipedia

The concept of romantic love was popularized in Western culture by the game of courtly love. Troubadours in the Middle Ages engaged in (usually extramarital) trysts with women as a game created for fun - and not for marriage. Since at the time marriage had little to do with love, courtly love was a way for people to express the love not found in their marriage. "Lovers" in the context of courtly love did not refer to sex, but rather the act of emotional loving. These "lovers" had short trysts in secret, which escalated mentally, but never physically. Rules of the game were even codified. For example, De amore (or The Art of Courtly Love, as it is known in English) written in the 12th century lists such rules as "Marriage is no real excuse for not loving", "He who is not jealous cannot love", "No one can be bound by a double love", and "When made public love rarely endures".

Some believe that romantic love evolved independently in multiple cultures. For example, in an article presented by Henry Gruenbaum, he argues "therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages".

Historians believe that the actual English word "romance" developed from a vernacular dialect within the French language, meaning "verse narritve", referring to the style of speech and writing, and artistic talents within elite classes. The word was originally an adverb of sorts, which was of the Latin origin "Romanicus", meaning "of the Roman style", "like the Romans" The connecting notion is that European medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure, not combining the idea of love until late into the seventeenth century. The word "romance", or the equivalent thereof also has developed with other meanings in other languages, such as the early nineteenth century Spanish and Italian definitions of "adventurous" and "passionate", sometimes combining the idea of "love affair" or "idealistic quality."

The more current and Western traditional terminology meaning "court as lover" or the general idea of "romantic love" is believed to have originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily from that of the French culture. This idea is what has spurred the connection between the words "romantic" and "lover", thus coining the English phrase "romantic love" (i.e "loving like the Romans do".) But the precise origins of such a connection are unknown. Although the word "romance", or the equivalents thereof, may not have the same connotation in other cultures, the general idea of "romantic love" appears to have crossed cultures at one point in time or another.